Chapter 44
forty-four
All I can manage is a nervous sigh and a light clearing of my throat.
I’d planned on introducing them eventually. Just not this soon. Once they get to know each other, I know they’ll have the potential to be great friends.
“Carrie. This is Lizzy,” Rowan intros, waving a finger back and forth. “Lizzy. This is my friend, Carrie.”
“OMG! You’re Lizzy?!”
Not much to my surprise, Carrie rushes across the room and pulls Lizzy into a hug.
Stunned, she freezes as my friend’s slender arms wrap around her, rocking her from side to side.
Awkwardly patting Carrie’s back with one hand, Lizzy grips her towel tight with the other. “Um, hi?” she squeaks, blinking at me over Carrie’s shoulder.
When my supermodel friend finally pulls away, her face is lit up with genuine excitement. “Rowan has told me so much about you!”
Lizzy’s eyes dart over to me.
I want to disappear through the floor.
“Oh, he has, has he?” she deadpans, arching a perfect brow in my direction.
“Oh my God, yes!” Carrie gushes, totally oblivious to the sudden tension. “You’re the one who got away! His childhood sweetheart! For years, it’s been ‘Lizzy this’ and ‘Lizzy that.’ I was beginning to think you were a figment of his imagination!”
Lizzy’s fingers clench into her towel. “Well, I am real. And wet.” She looks down at the small puddle on the floor. “I should probably go change.”
Carrie reaches out to touch her arm. “I’m so sorry I barged in unannounced. If I’d known you were here and that you two were… busy…” She looks over her shoulder at me with a knowing smirk. “I would’ve waited until tonight to meet you.”
My heart trips. Shit.
“Tonight?” Lizzy shoots me a look.
“Of course! At the gala!”
Lizzy tilts her head at me. “Seems someone failed to mention that little tidbit.”
I blow out a breath, feeling as though I’ve been caught in a lie. “I didn’t know for sure if she’d be back in time,” I explain.
“Plans change!” Carrie crows brightly. “The shoot wrapped early, and I wasn’t going to miss out on the gala for anything. Everyone who’s anyone will be there.”
She turns back to Lizzy and sing-songs, “Crane’s Gallery Gala is one of the biggest events of the season.”
One of Lizzy’s eyes twitches. “Sounds fun,” she quips, adjusting her towel. “I should... go. Nice to meet you, Carrie.”
With her back straight and shoulders tense, I watch Izzy go, fighting every urge I have to run after her.
As soon as she disappears, I huff, giving my friend a dirty look. “Did you have to come on so strong?”
“What? You mean, as my normal, outgoing, friendly self?” she grins, her perfect white teeth flashing as she tosses her blonde hair over her shoulder. “Come on, Rowan. You’ve been obsessing over that girl for years. I just had to meet her.”
I scrub a hand over my face. “Pretty sure you just freaked her out.”
“Oh, please.” Carrie waves a dismissive hand and flops onto the couch. “She seems like a tough chick. I’m sure she can handle knowing you’ve been pining after her. For as long as I’ve known you, at least.”
“I need you to take it down a few notches,” I warn, moving to sit in the chair across from her. “Our past is... complicated.”
“Oh, honey,” she says with a laugh, cocking her head. “There’s nothing complicated about the way you look at her.”
Folding my arms across my chest, I slouch against the chair and glower, which doesn’t dissuade her one bit.
“What about the photo you keep of the two of you in your wallet?” She raises a perfectly shaped eyebrow. “How old were you then, again?”
“That’s different,” I mutter in defense, heat creeping up my neck as I mumble. “I was eleven.”
No one but Carrie knows about the photo I’ve kept in my wallet all these years. Not even Logan. I found it in a box of my things a few months after they’d been sent over to Ireland from Lakeside.
It was taken the summer before my parents died. Lizzy and I are sitting on the tire swing in my front yard, grinning at each other like idiots with ice cream dripping down our hands. My mom had taken the picture with her old-school camera, saying we looked “so stinkin’ cute.”
Not only has the picture kept a piece of Lizzy with me all this time, but a memory of my mom too.
“I’m just saying,” she continues, “you’ve been hung up on this girl forever. And now she’s here.” She wiggles her eyebrows suggestively. “So what exactly is going on between you two?”
“It’s not like that,” I protest. Lacing my hands together, I stand, gripping the back of my neck. “We’re....” I give my friend a sheepish look. “…fake dating.”
“You’re what?!” Carrie squeals, her eyes widening to the size of dinner plates. “Why? How? When did this happen?”
Desperately wishing I’d never opened my mouth, I growl, “It’s a long story.”
“I’ve got time,” she says, crossing her impossibly long legs and settling deeper into my couch, game on for freaking story time.
“Look, I should go check on her—”
“Nope.” She points a perfectly manicured finger at me. “You don’t get to drop a bomb like that and then run the fuck away. Spill.”
With a heavy sigh, I drop back into the chair. “Fine.” I give her the rundown of the past couple of weeks.
By the time I’m finished, she’s laughing her ass off.
“It’s not that funny,” I grumble, watching her perfectly dark-lined eyes crinkle as she titters with glee.
“Oh, but it is though!” Carrie wipes at her eyes, careful not to smudge her makeup.
“Only you would go home to film a movie, then somehow end up fake dating your childhood sweetheart who—from what you’ve told me—pretty much hates your guts.
And now you’ve got her saying with you in your house? This is too fucking good.”
“She doesn’t hate me,” I object, though I’m still not entirely convinced that’s true. “At least, not anymore.”
Her expression softens. “You’re in love with her.”
My gaze darts over to the stairs. “Jeez, Care! Can you keep it down?”
Hand flying to her chest, she mock gasps. “Omg! You are!”
“That’s it. Time to go.”
I jump to my feet and grab her upper arm, gently dragging her up from the couch despite her protests.
“But… wait! I just got here!” she laughs as I guide her firmly toward the front door. “I haven’t even shown you my spread from Vogue!”
“Later,” I mutter, hand on her back now as I steer her across the living room toward the front door.
Playfully digging in her heels, she giggles. “Come on, Rowan! Don’t be such a grumpy-pants. I want to get to know your girlfriend! Oops!” She wiggles her eyebrows at me again. “I mean, fake girlfriend.”
“Care, I swear to God—”
“Fine, fine!” She throws her hands up, eyes dancing with mischief.
When we reach the door, she spins to face me, this time gently poking a finger into my chest. “I—”
“Nope.” The word comes out as a growl as I open the front door and give her a gentle shove.
“You’ve got it bad,” she singsongs. “And just so you know, I like her already.”
“Bye, Care,” I grunt firmly, one hand on the door.
She blows me a kiss. “See you tonight, lover boy!”
“Whatever,” I mutter, slamming it in her face.
Resting my forehead against the door, I take a deep breath. Damn, that woman is exhausting, but I love her like a sister. Still, her timing couldn’t have been worse. Just when things with Lizzy were heating up...
Speaking of which, I need to go check on her.
I’m halfway up the stairs when I hear the shower running in the guest bathroom.
My mind instantly fills with images of water flowing over her naked body, and I have to grip the banister to steady myself as a sharp wave of lust hits me right where it hurts.
No. Knowing Lizzy probably needs some space to come to terms with being blindsided, I stalk into my room, trying desperately to get my dick under control.
Showered and dressed in fresh clothes, I come out of my room just as Lizzy is heading downstairs. Dressed in denim shorts and a loose, cut-off Daughtry T-shirt, her damp hair is pulled up into a messy bun.
“Izzy.” Her name comes out as a plea as I jog to catch up with her. “Sorry about Carrie barging in like that.”
I follow her into the kitchen, waiting with bated breath as she grabs a bottled water from the fridge and twists off the cap.
Finally, she turns to look at me, taking a long drink before she says, “I like her.”
My body literally sags in relief.
“Really?” There’s no hiding my surprise. After the way Carrie burst in like a tornado sent from Oz, dropping the bomb about how Lizzy is the one who got away and that I’ve talked about her, I was expecting the worst.
“Yeah, she’s...” Her lips quirk up as she searches for the right word, “...enthusiastic?”
I snort. “That’s one way of putting it.”
“She called me your childhood sweetheart,” she states, eyeing me. “And ‘the one who got away.’ Care to explain?”
Heat creeps up my neck. “I may have mentioned you to her once or twice over the years.”
“Once or twice, huh?”
“Okay, fine. A little more than that,” I admit, tapping my fingers on the marble countertop. “She’s been my closest friend since about a year after I first moved here. Before we both got famous, she was my next-door neighbor. I talk to her about... stuff.”
Lizzy sets her water bottle down, green eyes searching my face. “Stuff like what? Me?”
“Sometimes,” I say carefully, trying to gauge her reaction. “Does that bother you?”
Expression flickering, she studies me for a moment before shrugging with a sigh. “I guess I’d be a hypocrite if I said yes. Logan has had to put up with me bitching about you for years. Not to mention my poor friends over the past few months.”
My heart skips a beat. “You talk about me?”
“Not in a good way,” she warns with a teasing glint in her eyes.